A Geek History of Time - Episode 362 - Funny Deaths in History Part II

Episode Date: March 27, 2026

They mean it is 2 o'clock in the fucking morning where I am. The 1848ers were so much more radical than what we're comfortable or familiar with. The layer, the layer of sarcasm involved in that entire delivery is like I've seen. It's not even frosting. But he failed, so fuck them buddies. Now after World War II ended, Lockley started mapping out foot trails for the newly created. Oh, God. Pembroke Shire.

So Pembrokeshire. Pembrokeshire. Okay. Pembrokeshire. Just please let me just read Latin all day. We're way into the 19th century now. I'm sorry. Well, Damien.

It's 3 o'clock in the fucking morning. We connect Nergerie to the real world. My name is Ed Blaylock. I'm a world history teacher here in Northern California. And as I have mentioned, probably an insufferable amount of times before, I am working on my master's in history. And I have a term paper coming up that is supposed to be a historiography paper.

And I have run into a problem I have never encountered before. The sources, so I'm looking at a particular topic where there is a kind of a received wisdom about the way a certain set of things happened. So as not to get too niche into what it is I'm covering because everybody'd fall asleep. And I have one of the original sources that wrote about these series of events. And then I have, and that was written in like 1947. And then I have a whole bunch of sources that are from the 90s to the 2000s into the 20 teens that are responding to the received wisdom.

saying, well, no, see, it wasn't, you know, we have this long running, you know, idea that it went this way, but it wasn't that, but, you know, here's all the evidence that it wasn't really that way and here's what we're pointing to. And the trouble is, I haven't been able to find any of the sources that spout the received wisdom. If that makes sense. Like the whole, I've got one set of historians that are, that are responding to all of this. But I can't find any of that like looking on the, on the, on the research. that I have searched so far. I haven't been able to find any of the perpetrators of the myth that all of these other more recent historians are busy trying to defeat. And that puts me in this weird position of being like, well, like, I mean, we can definitely see that there's development here because all of these are, all of these things are written as a response to this. But I need to find what the fuck they're responding to. I hate shit you know

in the history from 1947 like I can look at what what that's written and I'm like okay I see where the seed of this received wisdom is in this but like the full blown

you know all of these people were obstructionist assholes who were you know trying to prevent progress from happening which is the story like I don't I haven't found any those you're looking for

articles. You're basically trying to find a disease by way of its antibodies, right? Kind of, yes. Yeah. So I am, I am struggling with that, which is very inside baseball, but it's on my brain right now. And, and, and, and I need to write a 12-page paper by the end of next week. I've done a historian. Roman historians. Like, I feel your pain. I'm sure. Yeah. I'm like, well, it's lost to history. I don't fucking know, but this guy talked about it. a lot. Yeah. So that's what I have going on.

How about you? Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I'm a U.S. history and government teacher up here in Northern California. And tomorrow, and this will not quite date the show, but tomorrow, I will be running my kids through the last portion of the D&D game that is, I like to get them up to about level five or six before I really get them into the arc of the story. You remember, they have played a world-spanning arc that was basically me copying Conan the Barbarian, or actually Conan the Destroyer mixed with the Jason MoMAO a Conan, the Barbarian.

So just taking the worst of both worlds. But the Jason MoMA Conan was awesome, and you will never convince me otherwise. I rather like it, but it's not. Okay. If the first Conan you ever saw was Conan the Barbarian with Arnold Schwarzenegger, that set a tone that is very different than any Conan movie since. That is a fair statement. Yes. The MoMA Conan in all of its bonkers fucking weirdness. Yep.

Was, in my opinion, way closer to Robert E. Howard's actual writing. And I think that that's really what it is, because the, is much more similar to that too. Very much. Whereas Arnold Barbarian is a look at like the emotional damage that can happen when you watch your mother beheaded in front of you. Yeah. And revenge being the only emotion that you have like the emptiness of vengeance.

Like it's a brilliant, accidentally brilliant piece. So as a tone setter, yeah, you shouldn't do that. Uh, so, like, don't, don't do that. Don't, don't make a good Conan movie. Let them be this. Yeah. So, anyway, uh, so when we watched Conan the Destroyer, both of my kids just kind of did one of these where they just slowly turn and stare directly at you as we're watching their, their character plots unfold. Nice. Nice.

So tomorrow, we're going to finish the arc. where I completely ripped off the Kurt Russell the thing. There were Goliaths chasing a dog into the city. They were just about to leave. Yelling in, I had to check their character sheets to make sure. Yelling in a language that none of them understood. They didn't realize that these people were yelling, it's not a dog.

Kill it. It's not a dog. It will destroy you. And so my kids were all in on defending. The dog. I pulled up a picture of a spitz. Nice. And they're all in on defending it against all these Goliaths.

And they're like low level, but they're like fucking Goliaths. And so they fought them. And the Goliaths didn't fight to the death. God, no. They were like, fine, it's your fucking problem now. Right. Yeah. And they left.

And my kids are like, yes. And then like, they go to try to find the dog. Anyway, it's the thing. they killed the thing actually they don't know how many of the things there are left but i've even showed them a picture of the thing in its death throws when we're done with this with this uh with this adventure tomorrow night we're going to watch kurt russell's the thing they're gonna hate you so much so much so hard it's gonna be so good anyway that's what i got going on so love it yeah love it Yes. Okay. So when last we spoke, we had just finished talking about Greeks who died laughing.

Yeah. I just did a bit of a bit of a check. Yeah. I did a bit of a check. And Greeks seem to be the largest represented ethnic group on this list. But so I'm going to continue with silly deaths through history. because we need to whistle past the graveyard. Yeah, I'm here for it. We need to laugh. Have you ever heard of Sir Thomas Urquhart? Urquhart. Urquhart.

I think it's Urquart. U-R-Q-U-H-A-R-T. Yeah, Ur-Hart. Okay. Have you ever heard of Sir Thomas? Okay. He is one of my favorite ridiculous deaths.

Oh, God, what to say? He just, okay, he's a translator. So finally, one of my people. He's from Scotland, and he lived basically his whole life under the Stuart Kings. So good time to be a Scott, I would imagine.

Yeah, I'd say so. Well, mostly. I mean, there was that period of time at the end of his life where Cromwell was in charge because he lived. From 1611 to 1660. Yeah, that period sucked for pretty much everybody. Yeah.

Now, Urquhart was from a royalist, loyalist clan of Scots who fought against the roundheads during the time of Charles I. Okay. Sir Thomas was actually imprisoned following the Battle of Worcester. Or is it Worcester or Worcester? Worcester. He was fighting in support of Charles II. And after the loss of Charles I's head and the war to Cromwell,

well, he was imprisoned. Urquhart was in the Tower of London in 1650. And he was actually paroled by Cromwell a couple of years later in 1652. Now, what's funny to me here is that Urquhart brought all his manuscripts with him for the battle. Okay. He was a prolific writer publishing all sorts of things, including mathematical treatises. And so he brought it all with him? Okay.

There's a whole series of images associated with that. Like his servants, because obviously he's from a class where he had them carrying the chests of parchment. Yeah. That were just, yes. Well, and obviously I'm bringing my writings. Right. Do you need a lamp, sir? Oh, no, no, no.

Triangles. Yes. Fetch me my Galen. Um, like, okay. Yeah. And, uh, so yeah, uh, he, uh, let's see, um, while he was imprisoned, Urquhart published, uh, Pantochrona canon, which was a geological study of a genealogical study of his own family, subtitled a peculiar, prompterary of time.

Okay. Uh, while I say that he was prolific, it doesn't mean that people thought his shit was any good. So it's like our podcast. There's a lot of them. Cannot attest to the quality. But when he wrote epigrams, divine and moral, in 1641, it was panned as both inept and insipid. Ooh.

Yeah. He wrote his own mathematical system, but it was so unwieldy despite being internally consistent that it's basically the edsole of math? The Sega master system of math? Hey, you know what? No, I, that's, that's, that's, Did you have the depressing Sega? One of my friends did.

Where it turned on and it just sounded sad. Sega. Sega. Yeah. Yeah. And like, that was bad marketing. It was really, that was a real thing. really bad decision.

Uh-huh. But, you know, as a console, it didn't suck. I, you know, the game that you got with it was a motorcycle racing game that was too difficult to actually do anything with. The other one got Mario Brothers.

Like, well, yeah. I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's kind of the history of Sega versus Nintendo in a nutshell, really. Until you get to the Genesis, but yeah. Yeah. But yeah So anyway

His mathematical treatise didn't Didn't do so well And his Panto-Krona-Kon So it's Panto-Krona-chanon So Panto-Krona-chanon So Panto-Krona-Kanon I just assume none of the H's voice Okay, yeah

He traced his own family lineage back to Adam and Eve All the way up to himself there's there's a whole exercise there he's either a whole ass clown or a terrific troll I don't know which and the thing is you say that like it's a binary

you're true you say that like you can be can be yes well like either he's fucking with people or he does believe in this I don't think that you can have those two not be mutually exclusive he's either in on the joke or he is the joke.

I don't, I cannot see a world in which he knows he's just fucking with people and yet he gets people to think that he's. Well, there is, there is, what's the term? Is it blind? No, it's not blind eye. There's a, there's a term within Carney psychic circles. Mm-hmm. for a mentalist who genuinely starts believing that they have psychic powers.

I mean, wrestling that's called believing your own hype. Yeah. So, you know, I mean, there's a continuum. I,

I think there's a continuum. Okay. I think, I think it's a, it's a short continuum. Yeah. I don't think there's very much space in the middle. Yeah.

But I, I think, I think it is possible to be somewhere on a continuum where, you know, you are trolling people, but you also aren't a hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know what it is with him because, like, people, people have recently gone on to, like, no, he's satirizing everything. And other people are like taking what he says at face value. It's, it's kind of like, you know, when they called Pompey the Great, Pompey the Great. At first, it was a joke. Like, get a load of Pompey the Great over here. And then, like, we all know him as Pompey the Great. And then he made himself Pompey the Great. Like, yeah.

Yeah. So I don't know. It could have been a really long game kind of joke that he was playing on people who put stock into such things. I just don't know. And then. I mean, and it is entirely possible based on the time period in which he lived that no, no, he really believe like it is. I'm not, I'm not discounting the idea that it was possible that no, no, he really meant it. Yeah, that's possible.

That's also, that is also there. So now, then there's a book that he wrote called the Logopandectesian. He wrote that the year that he got out in 1653. And he wrote it as a treatise on the new language that he'd created. Because he's just the kind of guy to do that. And this is where I think that he's joking on everybody. Because if this. was actually a joke. This is his best joke yet. He created a language that had 12 parts of speech.

Stop eating while I tell you this guy. I'm sorry. What? 12 parts of speech. Each noun was inflected into 11 different cases. Four different numbers. 11 different genders, including man, woman, animal, god, and goddess. I just want to come back to how many numbers. You know how many numbers there are in Latin? Two. singular and plural. Right. He had four. What? How do you?

Okay, no, wait. Right. Wait, no. So, like, I've heard that, and I'm trying to remember exactly how this works, but like in Japanese, the way you use it, you're the kind of plural that you use, like, can vary based on the shape of the object. That's part of the inflection of nouns, though. That's different. That's matching nouns and adjectives. numbers are inherently adjectival.

Okay. You have that in other languages, too, right? Okay. There's, like, yeah, the shape of a thing or the use of a thing. I mean, ultimately, gender, masculine, neuter, which is what we have in Latin. Right. Those are just conceptual frameworks, right?

Okay. Same thing with, like, Vietnamese or with Chinese, where it's the shape of things, like you said, in Japanese, same kind of thing with the numbers being. So, again, it's just a conceptual framework. but for there to be more than two numbers to to a concept of a noun. So, so how, how,

how did, what else did he introduce? I don't know. I couldn't find the other numbers. Okay. So everything, everything you've said so far. Yeah.

Indicates to me that this is an individual who was really, really high like really really high on his own cleverness could be like everything about this

just screams I am the smartest smarty pants and and like like I'm going to create so masculine feminine

you said it was masculine feminine god goddess oh yeah let's see what we're there Yeah, man, woman, animal, god, goddess. That's just, you know, five of the 11. Like. See, that I'm cool with.

It's the, how do you have more than two numbers? There's either singular or plural. I guess I could understand, no. So that brings us to three. What's the fourth? What is different? What are you doing? What?

If we allow for zero, okay. singular okay plural what's the fourth like big plural like like one too one too many

one too yeah could I don't know but I don't know okay this is the 1660s like the King James Bible has been out now like you know

yeah so good that's done an oral but I'm just saying like people have the ability to write and count shit yes but yeah so yeah this this sounds like um he's huffing his own farts in a really really big way just hotboxing in the Tower of London um the verbs that were able to be conjugated because

there were some verbs that were inconjugable apparently but the ones you could conjugate could conjugate into 11 different tenses seven different moods and four different voices And again, I'm okay with most of this because you could have a present progressive. I am talking versus I talk a present simple, right? Right. I could see expanding those out. I could see different moods, right? Because the infinitive is technically a mood.

I could see you counting other things as moods. Okay. We have moods. We just don't talk about them as such. Okay. Um, what, like, um, what would you do if I were to say? That's a mood. That's the subjunctive.

It's not real. Okay. We talked about this with, uh, right, with, with, uh, professor STEM. Right. Yeah. Professor STEM years ago. Um, I could get to the moods. I could get to the, to all those, the voices I'm a little confused about.

Because there's active and passive. Again, how do you do more than that? What's on either side of those? conceptual? Like active, passive, I'm kind of thinking about it? Like, I'm not, you know. That would be a mood. You come back to mood there. Okay. I am loved passive. I do love active. What the fuck else is there? Yeah, this is 100%. Look how, look how, uh, yeah, this is, this is a hundred percent. Look how, look how, uh, yeah. Look how clever I am. Look how complicated I can make this language. Or just I. I, my life is a cabber. beret while I'm in prison. You know?

Just look at me go. I got nothing else to do. To give you an idea how ridiculous this is, here's Latin for you. Latin has five cases for nouns. He wanted 11. Again, fine. German has four, right? Latin has five, although you could

conceivably add a sixth and a seventh if you wanted to count the vocative and the locative because they're defective cases. They don't fully exist. but they are still holdovers from other languages that influence Latin. So for nouns and adjectives, you have five up to seven cases. Latin has three genders, okay, and two numbers. So the most forms you can have for an adjective would be 30,

unless you want to include the vocative, then it would be 36. For verbs, Latin has six tenses, four moods, if you want to count the infinitive as a mood, two voices, three persons, and two numbers. The most you could have for a verb, most forms you could have for a verb would be about 132 if it's a transitive verb. Okay. 130. And honestly, it makes sense because first person, second person, third person, singular, and plural.

So I, you, he, she, it, we, y'all, they. Okay. Right? So that's six per tense. Okay. Right. And you got six tenses. So that's 36. Then you got two voices. So now you got 36 times two because you got active and passive. And then you have the subjunctive, which only has four tenses because it's kind of cool. The subjunctive is this ethereal not quite real. Right. So it doesn't have a future tense because the future is also not quite real. Okay. Kind of cool. And there's no future perfect. So you get 36 minus 12. get 24 24 okay and then you double that because you got active and passive again then you got like five different infinitives okay right because you got three tenses of infinitives plus you got two voices

of infinitives right okay although there's usually not a future passive but we make up for that with the jaron and the drundiv hence you get up to about 132 forms okay and a lot of people like holy shit, that's way too much. It maths out really, really, like, succinctly. Like, yeah, okay. In the Logopandectesian, you have a minimum of 924 forms of a transitive verb, assuming that they have all the same number of persons and numbers for verbs. Adjectives would have 484 forms in a made-up language.

You can write this shit, buddy, but you can't speak it. I love it. This is why I think he's trolling everybody. In his book... Oh, my God. Yeah. Okay. In his book where he invents a new language,

Urquhart spent considerable ink on a disc track speaking against people who tried to stop him from publishing this book, specifically calling out the Church of Scotland amongst them. If the Church of Scotland only has one hater, I'm him. So, I mean, just imagine J.R. are our Tolkien starting the Hobbit off with this is for all the motherfuckers who never said I could do it. That's right

bitches I'm talking about the Church of Scotland the Archbishop of Canterbury and that bitch-ass branch manager from Lloyds of London Tom Moneybags himself Guess what you fools of a took? I did it and you know where you can find me In a hole in the ground not a nasty dirty Wet hole filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell like your mama's hole and nor yet a dry bare

Sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down or to eat like your daddy's hole. No, you bitches, you can find me in a Hobbit hole, all comfortable and shit. Nice. Yeah. Nice adaptation there. Thank you.

The thing about Hobbits is... I'm having heard Tolkien's voice in recordings. Yes. I'm imagining that in his very, very clipped Oxfordian, you know. I kind of want to, like, that might be the only ethical use of AI. Can we like offset our carbon footprint by buying bottled water or something? Like how many Nestle plants do I have to bomb for this to work? Like, so anyway, part of Urquhart's release by Cromwell meant moving back to the continent of Europe where he stayed until his death.

And that brings us to the whole point of this podcast. How did he die? he got news that Charles the second was restored to the crown and laughed himself to death at the prospect now that's three people that laughed their asses off the part that gets me

yes is he's a royalist yes and and so the question is is he laughing because you can't be serious that's so absurd or is he laughing because fuck that hater Cromwell

right well because this is charles the second coming back though this is the restoration oh yeah yeah so cromwell's dead oh right you know imagine being such a clot of a king and such a dandy and such a dipshit that a man laughed himself to death at the prospect of your coming to the throne despite having supported you years earlier yeah yeah okay yeah i was thinking of a different thing yeah imagine being such an over-serious prude and such a perinical asshat, such a horrid person that when you're finally deposed for said dandy, someone a continent away laughs himself to death at you're being deposed. Or yes.

I mean, both. This is one of those cases where both is a distinct possibility. Yeah. Because Cromwell was a shiel. Exactly. Like you nailed it so clearly. You're like, it's either this or this.

I'm like, fuck, that's what I wrote. Yes. Like, wow. Yeah. And this being the guy who laughs himself to death over that, too. Like he doesn't have the words. Like, well, I mean, he has them, but he can't conjugate them properly. Apparently.

You know, wow. Like, like, this is the case. of the biggest self-involved douche nozzle you know making a really good point. Yes. Like I 100% agree with you finding this that funny, but why did it have to be you? Right. Like, this is you're a pretentious asshole. Yes.

But yeah. Wow. And, you know, I think laughing himself to death to me should go in the column of evidence in favor of I'm trolling the shit out of all of you. I agree. I agree. Look how absurd all of this is. Yeah. Yeah.

Like. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Wow. Okay. Now, let's go back to Greece.

Oh, shit. Now, this is King Alexander of Greece. Now, this is King Alexander, who only reigned for like three years in Greece from 1917 to 1920. Oh, okay. Oh, wow. All right. So this is modern Greece.

Okay. And he was only born in 1893, which means he died at like 27 years old. So that sucks. Very Janus Joplin of him. Yeah. So Alexander was third in line for the crown, for the crown, the throne, whichever, of Greece when he was born. And his father, Constantine, was next in line, followed by Constantine's son, George, Alexander's older brother. Okay.

So when Alexander's born, his dad is the heir apparent and his dad's first son. George is the heir apparent to the heir parent and then maybe, you know. Yeah. So his father, Constantine, took over the throne in 1913 following King George I's death. Okay. His death being an assassination because it was 1913. So killing the head of state was a thing. That was going around.

Yeah. Yeah. Now George the first of Greece was king for 50 years when he was assassinated. He had been elected king by the National Assembly after they'd overthrown King Otto of Greece in 1862. Okay. George I was assassinated by a man who described himself as a socialist, but who others painted as a drunken vagrant. Okay. Constantine took over, but was forced into exile with his son George after the monarchy in Russia fell, and he no longer enjoyed the protection of the Tsar of Russia.

You had that kind of Eastern Orthodox, Russian Orthodox. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that whole thing. The reason that the Allied powers didn't like him was that Constantine was married to the sister of Wilhelm II. Yeah, that's problematic. Of course, we're just going to step over the fact that Wilhelm was also cousin to the British king, but whatever. Yeah, well, yeah.

Royal families were, yeah. Cool books have been written about it. Yes. Or that the Tsar of Russia was giving marriage advice. to Franz Ferdinand. Great. The Tsar of Russia himself being cousin to Wilhelm the second. Yeah.

So anyhow, this meant that Alexander of Greece became king in Constantine's and George's exile to Switzerland with allied support. Okay. In 19, I think I said, 1917. Alexander swore an oath of loyalty to the Greek constitution, cementing him as a constitutional monarch. However, Alexander became a puppet king of the allied powers. Now, once the war ended, though, Alexander got married in November of 1919, which scandalized his exiled father. Aspacia Manos was of a lower class than Alexander was, and this was a big faux paw. There was all sorts of issues involved in this, and Espasia was exiled to France by the guy who

was controlling the monarchy, Venizelos. Alexander, king of Greece, was allowed to go to France to visit with his exiled wife so long as they promised not to appear as husband and wife at official functions together. All sorts of weird. Yeah. Now, Alexander was walking his dog in early October of 1920 when tragedy struck in the form of a Barbary macaque who belonged to the steward of the palace's grapevines. Okay. Say that again. Hold on.

Yes. So Alexander is walking his dog in early October 1920. Right. The steward of the palace's grapevines had a barbary macaque. Okay. Okay. The king's dog, Fritz, which was a German shepherd who had been rescued from the trenches in World War I, was either attacked by the monkey or went after the monkey. It's not clear which.

But either way, a monkey dog fight ensued, and Alexander tried to break it up. The monkey bit him on the leg and on the chest. And even though servants came to chase off the monkey and cleaned and dressed his wounds, his own wife was a nurse in World War I, by the way. She also helped with this. It was too late for him. The wounds were too deep and they were too far away historically from the development of penicillin. And Alexander's monkey bite wounds became infected and septic.

Now there was some discussion within the week of amputating the leg, but no one wanted to step forward with such a drastic idea because his parents were still exiled. He could not receive a visit from them. And his grandmother, so he's in Greece. His grandmother was en route when Alexander died of a septic monkey bite on October 25th, 1920.

Wow. This led to Constantine the first being elected back into office by plebiscite out of exile, but the damage was done. The monkeys had their own Grvillo-Prinkip. It wasn't just a Peter Tork Greece, however, and it was not protected by a web of weird fucking treaties.

So World War II didn't start with his being bitten by a monkey. Yeah. Now, because Constantine was so feckless and because Greece had such instability during this time, Alexander's death only added to their problems. Winston Churchill once commented that Turkey's victory was due to this monkey bite and that 250,000 people died from this wound.

Wow. Yeah. Damn. Yeah. Now, it's possible that Constantine, his dad, finally reconciled with Aspasia because of the care that she gave to his son to comfort him. But it's unknown as to how quickly they reconciled. He came in kind of hard line, but then he saw her face.

And then he was a believer. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That, that, I don't know how I feel about that one. He died by a monkey. That hurt.

It actually, there was so much more to it that was like internationally fucked up. Like, it could have been its own episode. I had to truncate it way down. Like, there was so much because of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey. Greece that whole area yeah well the Balkans just post war yeah it was so fucking crazy like and how many things were like

hinging and caused by this and yeah you know because now he's no longer you know like you no longer have like an allied puppet over there so now it's a it changes the compass because of a fucking monkey bite

because of the weirdest randomest shit right Yeah. What I, what I think is interesting is I wonder even if there had been some, you know, Byzantine tangle of alliances and treaties and whatever. See, even if there had been something like that, in 20, everybody was fucking exhausted. Everybody had the flu. Yeah, well, yeah. There's that. Yeah. But, you know, even discounting the. flu like Congress here in the States is part of what I'm writing my paper about

and in this interwar period like this is the Washington naval treaties because you know number one you know we want disarmament and the Republicans in Congress are like okay we spent all this fucking money we we want that money back so I need to you know downsize and and you know we don't we don't want to deal with this shit you know and Great Britain and France are both are exhausted. Yeah.

Like I said. The only thing keeping them going is the desire to starve Germans. Yeah. You know. So yeah, it would be, yeah. But in that,

but in that region of the world, everything is still, you know, volatile. That's the word I'm looking for. Yeah. At that time point. So yeah.

Perfect time for a monkey to just, you know, make their move. Yeah, well, for a monkey to throw a wrench in the work. So. As they are apt to doing.

As they are apt to do. Yeah. Yeah. Death by monkey bite. Not something you associate with, you know, eastern central Europe. No. But I tell you, I see a monkey walking down the street. I'm going to hurdy gird my loins now.

Nicely done. Thank you. So, so I need to tell the story. I grab a macaque. Yeah. that shouldn't be as funny as that is that should not be as funny as that is but i have to tell story out of school on my own father okay because um you bet a monkey and it died no uh-huh your dad can be hornery i know yeah oh yeah a little bit but when when we were in hawaii he had

a uh a trip that he took i want to say i don't remember it was someplace in the far western end of the Pacific or the Indian Ocean. It might have been the Philippines, but I don't remember for sure. But wherever it was that he was staying, they were on a military base. And the military base, you know, there was a chain link fence and then like a clear area. And, you know, 20 yards out was jungle, you know, tropical. Yeah. Like you picture in the movies.

Yeah, yeah. jungle and there were monkeys of some variety that had taken control of I don't want to say possession of but like one of the dumpsters on the edge of the airfield was one of their haunts that was where they got their food from and so and so you know my dad was there for like five days and he was jogging at the time was you know, how he was getting his exercise. And so he'd get up every morning and you go for a jog. And for three days, he saw this group of monkeys and he'd kind of, you know, he paused and he watched how they were interacting with each other and saw their social dynamics. And he noticed that there was one older, grizzled looking monkey with only one leg, that all of the other monkeys were like when when this monkey made noise the rest of the monkeys really paid

attention and this this was clearly clearly the patriarch of the troop right sure and and this monkey and dad's you know path on his jog takes him you know he's 15 or 20 yards away from this dumpster as he's jogging and he notices that every morning as he makes his jogging this one old monkey is giving him the stink eye like he's watching him right and on his last day there um

just the imp of the perverse got in his head and he paused and he looked this monkey right in the eye like made full eye contact with it buried his teeth

it just went ch-chee-chee-chee-chee-chee-chee-chee-chee-chee-chee-ch and this one-legged monkey, jump down off of the dumpster and halved the distance between himself and my father in four long

like ground breakations. Yeah. And then puffed his chest out and went into full on, you know, threat display. And all that could think there were two thoughts. Number one, why did I do that?

And number two, the rabies shots are really going to fucking hurt. See, I thought his second thought was like, I could be king of Greece by now. Well, you know. He almost was. Yeah, nearly. Nearly was.

That's crazy. Yeah. And so he remembered everything about, you know, facing, facing, you know, threatening animals that he'd learned in Boy Scouts held eye contact and without looking, without showing any of the fear that was causing every, every. pour on his body to sweat, you know, carefully backed away, never breaking eye contact until the monkey kind of went, you know, the, the primate, yeah, the primate equivalent of, that's what I thought, bitch.

I thought you're going to like, your dad was going to have like a rocky moment where he's just getting chased through the streets by just. No, no. And, yeah, he, he was sufficiently chastened. And yeah, the monkey went back and dad went back to his own business. And, yeah. So I heard that story from him as a lesson. And don't, don't, don't mess with stuff like that.

Don't just mind your own business. So yeah. Okay. Yeah. All right. So this next one is Bobby Leach. Bobby Leach was the first man to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Okay.

He was actually the second person to do it because a woman did it 10 years earlier than he did named Annie Taylor. Okay. Now, Annie Taylor was a school teacher who did it on her 63rd birthday to make money because even then there was no good retirement plan for teachers. Yeah. she uh it this did not work for her she still ended up destitute by her death um in 1900 annie taylor was pretty poor due to investing money with a crooked clergyman uh sucks she went over in 1901 after testing her barrel on a domestic cat um she was successful but it was miserable uh and and i don't think i put these details in here

The cat made it just fine. I think it had a busted leg and a laceration on its head. And the laceration on its head's interesting. So she went over and she said, quote, if it was with my dying breath, I would caution anyone against attempting the feet. I would sooner walk up to the mouth of a cannon, knowing it was going to blow me to pieces

than make another trip over the fall. This is what she reported to the press after. Okay. This was a mistake. Do not try this at home. Yeah. Yeah. Now, following her pattern of trusting unreliable men, her manager ran off with the barrel and the money that she made from the trip.

And so she spent what little money she had left on private investigators to find the prick who ran off with her barrel. Because apparently the barrel is what everybody wants to see. Okay, yeah, that tracks. Now, her barrel was made of oak and iron, and she was sealed inside of it, and she had a mattress inside. of it. That was it. Okay. Yeah. I mean, you know, based on everything about what that trip

would involve, that kind of makes sense. All right. So, but I'm sitting there going like, why not just remake the barrel? Yeah, well, yeah. I mean, William Henry Harrison made a faux log cabin to drag around everywhere and get people drunk out of. Yeah.

But okay. All right. So anyway, uh, the money that She did have, she spent on private investigators to find him. She eventually found it, I believe it was in Chicago, but then her new manager stole it. That poor woman. Yeah. But this isn't about her. No.

This is about her spiritual heir to the title of dumb fuck who went over the falls in a barrel because we collectively lack the will to goddamn take care of anyone in this fucking country. Or indictment of our system, for short. Yeah. Okay. So I'm there for it. Bobby Leach. Leach made his barrel.

Oh, by the way, she died like nobody knew her actual age, by the way. Okay. Like, she lied about her age the whole time. I think she said she was 47, not 67 when she did it. Back then, how can you tell the difference? After 47, you shouldn't be dead anyway. But, like, when she died, they buried her next to another daredevil. But they didn't get her date right.

There was all kinds of weird shit that I left. But anyway, Bobby Leach made his barrel out of metal instead of out of wood. He tried to make his living partly on Annie Taylor's name, claiming in his restaurant that he opened up near Niagara Falls. And he dragged his family along to this. That anything she could do, he could do better. Oh, great. Yeah. So he was born in England, and eventually he made his way over to Niagara Falls to repeat her stunt, but better because he's got a dick.

and he was 54 years old, which was actually younger than her, but reportedly older than her. And like I said, his barrel was made out of nearly 2,000 pounds of steel, and he put a suspended hammock inside of it and even a little viewing window for himself. So the idea was,

if he's in a suspension, he'll never actually hit, and it'll be better. It's kind of like if you look at cars from the 70s and they have that weird, like, Venetian blinds, thing going down the back because it was supposed to be for wind resistance. Right, right.

Here's an idea, you know. By the way, when she went over, she was pretty much fine, but for a head laceration. Huh. So he goes over. He did it better all right. He broke both kneecaps, fractured his skull, another head lascaration. Oh, shit. And he had to spend six months in the hospital.

Well. His poor wife and kid. Like, yeah, but what, what strikes me is interesting. So, okay, he was in a suspended. Yeah. Hammock thingy. Yeah. So the suspension must not have been very good.

I mean, obviously, he's ricocheting off the walls. That's, yeah. Like the broken bones could just be from, you know, impact. I think that's what that was. Yeah. But a, you know, bang on the. knocking like that. That sounds like an impact. Yeah, no, all of that sounds

like banging around and smashing. Rattling around. Like, wow. Jesus. Now, when she went over, she had like compressed air put into it as well. So like, the idea was that there would be like an air cushion for her and it was sealed. His, I think, was

like clamped and then he had pressurized air pushed into it as well. Okay. Now, prior to all this, Bobby Leach had spent much of his life doing stunts and the like for carnivals and festivals. This is his life, right? He was good at showmanship and evidently better at picking managers than Taylor because he kept his barrel.

Okay. And he took it on tour with him. And while he was on this publicity, look what I did years ago tour, Bobby Leach went to the dangerous country of New Zealand. And it would be here that Bobby Leach met his demise. Okay. While on this tour, Bobby Leach. He was attacked by Hobbits. No.

He was in the town of Christchurch Okay And he slipped on an orange peel And it led to an infection And gangrene then amputated An attempted amputation and then death He He went

He went over Niagara Falls Busted his skull And both kneecaps Yep Yep Made it out of that Yeah no problem

Yeah, six months. I mean, you know, it took a lot of recovery. But yes. But made it out of that. Yes. And then died from a skinned knee. Yes. From slipping on an orange peel in the street.

Yeah. You know, I said it last episode, I'm saying it again, when your number's up. Like. Yeah. But sometimes you'll take steps to accelerate it, too. Yeah. Zachary Taylor, the 12th president of the United States. Okay.

Here's a guy who fought in all the fucking wars he could, right? War of 1812, Black Hawk War, Seminole War, Mexican-American War, and only the last three were wars of expansion empire. After all these wars, Zachary Taylor was an old and popular for, he was old, he was popular for his courage, despite also not following orders and taking the war farther into Mexico than he was authorized to do. He's kind of like the MacArthur of his time, I guess. Kind of. Or MacArthur was the Taylor of his time.

Anyway, he was absolutely of the wealthy planter class in Kentucky. He had over 300 acres and some slaves from his dad as a wedding gift. Right. He and his wife Peggy had six kids, two of whom died before they were five, one of whom married Jefferson Davis and then died of malaria shortly thereafter. Probably for the best. Yeah. Being married to Jefferson Davis would be an ordeal all its own. And his youngest son, Dick, became a general in the Confederate Army.

So very Kentucky wealthy. Right. Zachary Taylor was successful in land speculation, buying distressed plantations and failing to turn them profitable, which is wild since the plantation model is you don't have to pay your labor. Yeah. All told, he held 127 people in slavery. Zachary Taylor never made a profit on the cotton in Mississippi

despite having a ton of land to do so so not good at any of this anyway he was convinced after the Mexican American War to run for president for the Whig Party Now famously Zachary Taylor's voting record prior to running for president was that he had absolutely no votes ever recorded with his name attached he'd never voted period

really really I had not known that. Yeah. Now, two years into his presidency, Zachary Taylor was well on his way to being a rather mediocre president, which I can respect. But on the 4th of July of 1850, Zachary Taylor attended a fundraiser for the Washington Monument. While at this fundraiser, he drank a bunch of iced milk and ate a whole fuck ton of cherries. Oh, okay. I'm I'm remembering okay yeah yeah now in Washington DC at the time especially in the summer

cholera was all the rage it was so hot right now oh my god yeah uh though others said that it was simply infectious diarrhea brought about by the massive quantities of cherries pickles warm water and iced milk that he consumed oh okay others say it was the cholera but you combine all that with the heat and his fevers and he was not long for the world. Zachary Taylor died five days later because he, he, old rough and ready. Right. The guy who survived four fucking wars

had horses shot out from under him. Like, did all this, he drank cold milk and ate cherries in the heat. Yeah, and that killed him. And he died. And this is why food safety is critical. Mm-hmm. So. Yeah

Hold on I'm looking up There's We've mentioned a couple of English kings And talking about people dying from what they ate Oh sure I got an episode on that man Jesus

Oh yeah Let's see Henry the first Uh huh Died After eating A a surfeit of lampreys,

which were, eels. Yeah. Apparently it was, it was, there was an eel dish from, you could eat eels from the Thames, but you were not to eat vegetables, because those were dirty. Those were, yeah, well, those come out of the, like, come on now. Yeah. Yeah, but he, he ate, he ate, uh, too many of them and, and had, had some kind of the, the richness of the food.

Oh, God. apparently caused some kind of embolism. And I know that he's not eating them the way that they would eat us. Yeah. He's not just like sliding them down like a sword swallower. No. That's how I picture it. That's, yeah.

It's hard not to. Right. You know, but yeah. So, so, you know, national leaders dying from, you know, overindulgence. Yeah. And again, and you mentioned in the last episode, you mentioned Chingis Khan dying of a nosebleed. Right. The part that you left out is the nosebleed was associated with drinking himself into a complete fucking stupor.

Yes. Because he was because of a marriage. Yeah. Yeah. At his wedding feast. Yeah. Yeah. And just drinking himself into a complete stupor and basically having a stroke.

Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. You know. Have you ever heard of the third? years. Well, actually, let's, before we get to there. Have I ever heard of the 30 years? I'm sorry, sir. Okay.

Put a pin in that. All right. I will. Because we're mentioning guys died with food. I got to throw love to my boy, George, the second. Because it needs to mention. He was at the time of his death and failing health, but he was going deaf. He was blind in one eye. Right.

But he died in a way that I still think is one of the best ways to die. Remember, he wakes up one cold morning in October. drank hot chocolate and had a poop. Yep. And then died. Yeah. What a nice blend of flavors and sensations to start your day and finish your life. I'm sorry.

But describing it the language you just used in the context of all the events involved. Like there's the way of taking that like the way that it would be intended. And then there's a whole other like must you use flavor? in the context of that series of events. Like, that's off pudding. Yeah, a little bit. Putting.

So off pudding. Off pudding. Yeah, but like, yeah, I mean, you know, if you got to go, there are, there are worse ways. Right. Then, then having that level of relaxation. Yes. Yeah. And having that flavor on your tongue.

Yeah. You know. But. Yeah. Anyway, okay, 30 years were, you've heard of this? Yes, yes, fuck you. All right, have you heard of Yorg Yen Yenach? J-E-N-A-T-S-C-H?

Yon-A-T-S-C-H-N-A-N-H-N-O-K-K. All right. So I'm going to call him Yorg because that's easier. Yeah. Yorg was on the Protestant side, siding against the Spanish Hapsburg supporters who were Catholic. Um, Yorg himself was Swiss, uh, part of one of the larger alpine cantons who were pro-Protestant. Yeah. And he took very seriously the overtaking of his canton by Spanish Catholic forces and a massacre in 1620 as it placed his home under the control of a foreign invader and their allies.

Now, being a Swiss man, a Swiss man. Being a Swiss. Being a Swiss. I, he would have a huge problem with this, right? Yeah. So, Yorg, a Swiss political leader by this point, undertook to murder the shit out of the rival party's head, Pompeius von Planta in Pompeius von Planta's own home,

like you do, which was a castle. Yeah. Okay, so this murder aligned with local goals, but Yorg still had to flee the area because the way that he and his co-conspirators left von Planta was too brutal to be countenanced. So they murdered. him in his own castle and Yorg and his party, well, so to get to the murder, they show up at

Von Planta's castle, but Von Planta heard that they were coming. So he and his dog hid above the fireplace. Okay. The dog whined and gave them away. So they pulled von Planta from his hiding place and, and, you know, and, you know, he pulled, his daughter had to witness the murder of her father, von Planta, including the removal of his heart from his body.

Oh, fuck. Yeah, Yorg went in hard. And his body was then left in his own castle with an axe pinning it to the floor. Wow. Yeah. Now, after the murder, Yorg ceased to be a pastor.

Did I mention he was a pastor? Yeah, well, 30 years war. Yeah. It doesn't surprise me. And he stuck only to brutality and soldiery. He went to fight for Cardinal Richelieu because it mattered more to him that his land was free than what religion the boss was.

Okay, all right. That makes sense. And eventually Yorg converted to Catholicism because, and this actually seemed to be kind of a political maneuver for him to get more support to free his Canton from Spanish rules. Yeah. It didn't work.

In 1639 when York was attending a carnival still trying to find a way to liberate his homeland from Spanish Catholic rule, he was killed by a man dressed in a bear outfit with an axe. So is this like a Trotsky kind of situation? He was killed by a mascot wielding the same axe that he had pinned the corpse of von to the floor of his own castle and the man who was in the bear outfit was Rudolph von Planta son of Pompeius von Planta no shit dude he got killed by a man in a bear outfit and then that same year Spain restored the canton to its original autonomy wow almost feels like a fuck you yeah I figured it was

because they could no longer bear the troubles. Hmm. Yeah, well, nobody's around to axiom anymore. Exactly. So, okay, so hold on. So, hold on. He's killed by a man dressed like a bear. Okay, yeah, but the man dressed like a bear was the son of the guy he killed?

Yes. Okay. Yeah. So, like, I want a movie. Yeah, me too. I want, I want the film of the son's, you know, journey to avenge his father's death. including the training montage of bear minds. Yeah, yeah.

Acting out being a bear and then and then, you know, seeing his opportunity. There's a Swiss guy who's banging the thing. No, no, no. You go for the honey first. Then you go and greet the children. Yeah, yeah. This is not fair play. This is not bear play.

Like, you know, and seeing his moment and like seizing the axe. Like in that, you know, and Letting it just drop into his hand. Like he's been working that, that like spring loaded mechanism for years. Why do you always wear that, that, that harness on your arm? Ah, it's an old injury. Click, click, click. Yeah.

Click, click drop. Click, click, click, click, click drop, you know. Yeah, but wow. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to sneak up on him in a bear suit. Like, wait. hold on

okay I mean he won't see it coming I mean like you won't see it's you but how are you going to get close to him when you're dressed like a bear I don't worry there'll be a festival it'll be a carnival yeah and I love the fact that in the context

of Europe at that time the answer would be oh all right that works yeah yeah what thank you hold hold on All right. Yeah.

Do you remember when you had your oath of the beard? Yes. Did you ever, like, did you ever oil it and, like, shape it and stuff like that? Yeah. Okay. Did you ever think this is worth dying for? No, that never occurred to me. Then your beard has not been so magnificent as Hans Stanninger's.

Okay. enter the mid-1500's six-time elected Bergermeister of Brannau in on the Austrian border with many of the many small duchies, principalities, and small states in what we now call Germany. Stoninger was the possessor of the world's longest beard at the time. Okay, that's pretty cool. And again, six-time elected Bergermeister. Yeah, well, that said something about his reputation with his neighbors.

All right. Now, in late September of 1567, Stoninger was helping his town to fight a fire. Oh, no. Oh, yeah. Now, his four-foot-six-inch beard was out and about, and he was running to the disaster. Now, rather than stopping to bundle it up in the leather beard pouch that he normally used, yes, he had a beard pouch. Fuck, yeah, you'd have a beard, but for that glory?

Yeah. Yeah. But instead of stopping to bundle up his beard in the leather beard pouch, he took his life into his own chin. He stepped on to... So there's a fire. He steps onto his beard at the top of a flight of stairs, and it causes him to fall down the stairs, breaking his neck. His neck. The six-time elected Berger Meister's own chin issued a deeply local referendum.

Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Now that's when your number's up, man. Yeah, keep saying that. Yeah, well, it keeps being relevant. Yeah, yeah. All right.

So now I'm going to do two generals, both American generals. And then I will finish up with the story that had me laughing so hard that I had to just close the computer and walk away. Okay. So the first general. These are not in alphabetical, they're not an alphabetical order. Actually, this is alphabetically, but just by accident. Yeah. The first one I'm going to talk about is General George Smith Patton Jr.

Okay. He's a local Californian. Nice. He is, although California is 500 fucking miles long, so local. But he was an Olympic pentathlete, finishing fifth in the competition behind four Swedes in 1912. Oh, wow. Okay. He also believed in reincarnation, famously.

and thought that his ancestry and reincarnation were both important to his identity. Patton was a big-time reformer of the cavalry and was well on his way to a dead-end assignment in the Philippines, but for the opportunity to serve under Pershing as the U.S. went to war with Poncho Villa. Okay, right. Pershing intervened on Patton's behalf just ahead of World War I again, too, reassigning Patton from horse procurement to being his assistant overseeing the AEE, for World War I. Right.

It was during this time that Patton started looking into tanks while recovering from jaundice. Right. Now Patton was one of the first American commanders of a tank in January of 1918. And what I always get a kick out of is like we always think, oh, the war ended in 1918, November. Yeah. It ended 11 months in. And we didn't know it was going to end in January. So by April, we still don't know what's going to end.

Patton was Lieutenant Colonel, and he was teaching American tank drivers to support infantry. And there is a whole episode on Not So Quiet, the Wonderful Podcast, Not So Quiet. And they talk about tanks for like two or three episodes, and it's really good. All right. But anyway, so in August, Patton is in charge of the first provisional Tank Brigade, serving under Samuel Rockenbach, which is just a cool name, who was the father of American tanks.

Right. Patton led his tank corps into the Muz Argonne, the final Allied offensive of the war in September of 1918. And it's here that Patton gained more experience being a tough ass and an abusive one at that. He found an American soldier who wouldn't work the way he wanted him to, and in order to get the tanks in the rear up to the front, he hit the man over the head with a shovel and killed him.

I was not familiar with that story. Yeah. So anyway, because he seemed to have the same legal team as Laura Bush, nobody seemed to care. Now, between the wars, Patton continued to fall in love with tanks, theorizing them as being an independent fighting force, not the support that they were used for World War I. before World War I, during World War I, and between the two World Wars, Patton collected injuries in the way that you collect swords. That's a great way of describing that, yes. Now, once World War II started, Patton was again promoted and continued to innovate armor combat.

And by the time the war was winding down to an end, Patton was advocating for the fastest stab at the Berlin that American armor and infantry could muster. Right. And honestly, it's kind of like Blitzkrieg American style. He was asked about whether slowing down with slave American lives. And Patton responded by saying, whenever you slow anything down, you waste human lives. Yeah. There's there's legitimate argument there. There absolutely is.

I think that very often we look back with presentist eyes. And I can appreciate that because I do like judging history. and saying, no, they got it wrong. But the caveat to that is, based on the information they had. Yeah. You know, it's, it's, I wrote an essay years and years ago about dropping the atomic bombs. I think both of these were horrific war crimes and should have been persecuted as, or prosecuted as such. And also, I think American military leaders had justification for doing it.

Yeah. Based on the information that they had at the time. Right. And then they also used studies later that they would try to use to justify it. But those studies came after. So I called bullshit. Yeah. And also they were war crimes.

Like I'm okay with all of that. Yeah. But anyway, uh, let's see. So he was nicknamed blood and guts around this time and the name stuck for the rest of his life, which would actually only be 18 more months. Yeah. So after World War II, Patton was made a military governor of Bavaria. Yeah.

And he he lamented out loud that denazification was a bit of a mistake since the Germans were the only good people in Europe. Yeah, Patton had some opinions. Oh, he skated very close to anti-Semitism. When you combine it with the fact that several former Nazis held positions in Bavaria under his watch. Yeah. He didn't just have some thoughts. He had policy. Yeah.

Additionally, Patten kept refugees in their camps. I understand that actually because of, we've talked about this when you pull people out and you start feeding them regular food and also where you can house them. It's awful. You should be making shit a lot more comfortable. I don't know that he did that so much. But, yeah. Okay. He also refused Jewish chaplains in his headquarters, though.

Yeah, that's, that's bullshit. And his reasoning for keeping them. in the camps was that if he let Jews out of the camps, that would increase the crime and violence in the area. Because they were desperate? I think he thought because they were Jews. Yeah. Because then he also complained on how they controlled the media.

Fuck. Because of course he did. Because of course he did. Yeah. He also called them, quote, locusts. Oh, Jesus. Another time he called them subhuman. And he also said that they were, quote, lost to all.

decency. Yeah, he was he was a rat bastard. I just really know yeah. Now Eisenhower insisted that Patton retract his statements but Patton straight up doubled down on them instead and this is September of 45. The war is over in both theaters. Right. We've been working to like figure this shit out and like set up the Nuremberg trials like so he gets relieved of command. Right. Um, But then again, he didn't get fired, though. Like, I don't know. Yeah. Like, like, one of my, one of my beefs with Truman.

Mm-hmm. Because at this point, it's Truman. In 45, yeah, yeah, yeah. Patton should have been fucking fired. Well, I think he maybe learned that. And because when it was MacArthur, he did fire MacArthur. Oh, yeah. You know, although MacArthur also brought us to the brink of nuclear war.

So, you know, yeah. But, yeah. No, it, it, it, for that level of insubordination, it should have been, okay, you can turn all your shit in now. You're done. And, and no retirement for you, fuck off. Like, you know. Yeah. It is also possible that he received so many head wounds and horse and car related injuries that his brain might have been damaged enough to change his personality and remove even more of his filters.

we've seen this with politicians in Pennsylvania. This is true. We've seen this with the director of Health and Human Services. Yeah. So anyway, here's a guy whose whole life was about being tough, being unapologetic, armored, and frenetic in his activities. Right. And then he got into a car accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down

and in traction for his last days. Yeah. Patten died on December 21st, 1945, crippled and broken by a limousine accident where he crashed his head into the glass partition between the driver and passenger sections. Yeah. Again, was in the military fighting Poncho Villa, was running tanks. Yep. Was the armored commander in Europe for the Americans. Yeah.

died because he hit his head on a glass partition in a limousine. Yep. Yeah. It's, a man who was all about speed and going fast and his last days, he's unable to move himself at all. Yeah. So.

Poetic. Yeah. Poetic. Now here's, here's one that's a little more funny. Kind of the universe saying, kind of the universe saying talk shit, get hit. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, fuck around, find out. Yeah. Now here's, here's one that's a little more funny. Okay. That one is like, yeah, like you said, poetic.

Like there's not much funny about it in terms of slapstick. It's one of those like, oh, but this one's hilarious. General John Sedgwick of the Union Army. You already know. No, yeah. This is my favorite American military death. It's a bummer that's Union General and not a Confederate general. Such a remarkable thing.

Such a remarkable thing to have a favorite of You want to know what my favorite U.S. military death is a reason that is fucking morbid but okay Sure. That's a kind of person is willing to date me Yeah Now it is a bummer that he was a Union General not a Confederate general, but it is still hilarious. Okay, so John Sedgwick General John Sendrick got wounded three times at the Battle of Antietam Yep

He'd also fought at the Battle of Seven Pines, but when it got to the Battle of Spotsleyville, I Pennsylvania. Sedgwick, having been shot three times the year before and recovered, was exhorting his men ahead of the battle. He stood up on a crate and started scolding them because bullets were flying toward them and they were all ducking. And he's saying, what are you doing, dodging this way for single bullets? Let's see, and that they should stand firm. Here's the quote, what? Men dodging this way for single bullets? What will you do when they open fire along the whole line. The men continued to duck out of reflex to fucking bullets flying around them.

Sedgwick doubled down in his frustration, quote, why are you dodging like this? They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist. Thud. There is a sharpshooter that shot him to death. His chief of staff, Lieutenant Colonel Martin McMahon, said, quote, the same shrill whistle closing with a dull heavy stroke interrupted me, and I remember distinctly that I commenced to say,

General, they are firing explosive bullets when his face turned slowly to me and blood spurting from his left cheek under the eye in a steady stream brought to me the first knowledge of our great disaster. He fell in my direction and I was so close to him that my effort to support him failed and I went to the ground with him. Sedgwick never gained consciousness again. Yeah. But he was right because no elephants were hurt in advance of that battle. No elephants were harmed in the course of that conflict. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist. Yep. Yeah. Like imagine being the private who he's staring at and just reading to filth. And the private was like, guys, was I right or was I right? You know. Anybody.

Come on. Like right there. Right. Right there. I told him. I told him. We told him. It was all you too.

We all warned him. We all warned him. Yeah. Like, yeah. Yeah. And from a, from a command point of view, the, the, the level of blow to morale. Like, nope, we're all right. We ain't going out there.

Right. That noise. No. Yeah. I never looked up whether or not the union won the Battle of Spotsleyville. I don't know that one. I only know it because of that because Sedgwick died

That's right It was a series of courthouses Um But but bupah You're talking about Spotsylvania? Spotsylvania yeah Did I say Spotsleyville? Yeah

Oh, whoops Yeah I think it's Spotsylvania Yeah It was inconclusive Yeah Like a lot of them Mm-hmm

Yeah Yeah All right So now, I'll end with my, just the most hilarious death of all the deaths. Okay. Have you ever heard of Catchy the Poodle? No, I have not. Okay.

Now, normally I would not be laughing at a dog's death. No. But fun, this is hilarious. Okay. Oh, my God. Okay. So you remember Robert Liston from the last episode, right? Right.

Yeah. This is another one where it's multiple people dead due to the actions of another, but this time the dog dies too. So I will warn you now. I'll give the warning. Right. Okay. It's autumn of 1988. Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Man's best friend kills three people. Oh, no. Catchy the poodle was playing ball with the young son of the family that owned him on the 13th floor of an apartment building. Oh no. No one knows how or why, but some people have theorized that a ball rolled past the dog out the window onto the balcony and down. The dog followed the ball. Catchy the poodle fell from the 13th story of an apartment building. And again, I think it had to do with that tennis ball.

Marta Espina, a 75-year-old woman who was on a walk, she had just stopped to admire. Meyer, the carpet in a window shop, or in a shop window, rather. She stopped in just the wrong spot, and poor Catchy killed his first victim of the afternoon. Wow. Now, Edith Sola was a 46-year-old bystander. A growing throng of people came to see what had happened. And where she started to head across the street to get a look at what was happening,

Oh, no. She did not grow up watching David Prouse's public service announcements, and as such, Ms. Sola did not look both ways before fixatedly stepping into the street to get a gander at what had happened. This put her right in the path of an oncoming bus. No. The driver, which had fewer than two seconds to react to someone stepping in front of the bus. Right.

Swerved and fish-tailed right into her, killing her. Now, coming out of a nearby pharmacy was an unnamed man who saw the gory mess that was a failed attempt at canine-based reverse centaur. And he heard the screech of a bus trying to avoid hitting someone, which led him to look over in time to see a woman launched sideways by a fish-tailing bus and bouncing on the asphalt, not too far from him. All of this was too much for his heart to take, and the beta blockers in his bag did nothing to help him, and he fell to the ground with a heart attack.

The ambulance, who was already en route, quickly triaged the situation and took him to the hospital, died on the way. Wow. Yeah. That's that's like something out of a final destination movie. Really? It does.

Like final destination meets Monty fucking Python. Yes. Like how how unlucky do you have to be to be killed by a poodle falling out of a 13th story window? And then

and then how unlucky do you have to be to be walking out of a pharmacy. To see a woman. To see that. No, not to see that. To see the woman getting hit by the bus and launched at you because she was trying to cross the street to see what had happened. Yeah. Yeah.

Wow. Mm-hmm. The sheer level of awful involved in that. Like. Do you imagine coming home late to dinner that? night from sitting in that plaza and your wife is like this is the fourth time you've come home late what is her fucking name and you're like honey i swear to god here's what happened like you are sleeping in the driveway you are not even there's no yeah you not even yeah like so but the next day

when it shows up in the newspaper you're like you owe me i told you yeah yeah Like the way that that story inspires laughter Reminds me of and I'm trying this is years ago that I remember reading about it But a An incident in Finland Where a group of men were You know it's the middle of winter in northern Finland They're near the Arctic Circle.

It's great. It's bleak. It's depressing. And a group of men got just absolutely blackout drunk and went out into the snow, quote, unquote, to play men's games. Oh, Lord. That involved a chainsaw. Oh, no. Oh, no.

And when Sean and I heard just that part of the story, we, we. We both immediately pictured a scene in which, you know, one of them says, look what I can do, picks up the chainsaw, tries to juggle it, and cuts off both of his own hands. And they're all so drunk that one of the other guys in the circle goes, that's good, but watch this. Oh. Like.

Oh, when we say famous last words. Yeah. And then the results of that are bad enough. that they all stand there and they instantly get sober. Yeah. In a moment later, everybody starts screaming. Except for the one guy who said, watch this because he cut his own head off. But like, it's horrific.

But hey guys, watch this, right? Right. And it's like a Cohen Brothers movie where something horrible happens. And then there's this moment where it's just so hideous and absurd that you can't not laugh. Yeah. You know, it's the same thing. Wow. Yeah.

It becomes horrific slapstick. Mm-hmm. So, yeah. The dog falling. Yeah, that's, I'm sticking with final destination there. Yeah. Like, it really had a, yeah. how fucking random can you can you get and how many things have to be just so yeah collect that body count

yeah like again yeah final destination yeah it's that's absurd yeah so anyway that was that was delightful philly deaths through history yeah i'm really glad i had a very large beer when we were recording the first one of these because wow oh boy yeah yeah yeah Yeah, evening Christmas. Well, what do you want to recommend to people? I'm actually going to recommend Monty Python's the meaning of life. Because when we're talking about absurdist humor that occasionally gets a little bit dark. Yeah.

That's a really good one. And after all of that, I just think whenever life gets you down, Mrs. Brown, and things seem hard or tough. You know, that particular bit has always been a source of solace to me. I pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space because there's a bugger all down here on Earth. So that's my recommendation, Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. How about you? I'm actually going to recommend the world's fastest Indian. It's a Anthony Hopkins movie from early 2000s,

and it's just one of the most positive and life-affirming movies. Like there's no real drama to it. It's just a man who has a 1926 Indian motorcycle that he has souped up as best as he can, and he wants to make it go as fast as possible on like the salt flats of Utah. And he does. And it's a biopic, but, you know, there's a lot of creative license taken. But like, there's a lot of creative license taken. But, like, there's a wonderful documentary, or there's a wonderful interview of Anthony Hopkins talking about it on the Daily Show, with John Stewart.

Oh, wow. Like, around the time that it came out. I want to say that the movie itself was like, oh, three, oh, two. But it's just so positive. So it's very Don Quixote-like. Yeah. Yeah. The bits I've seen of it have that kind of vibe.

Yeah. And I just, you know, it's good. It's good. You should watch it. It's a life-affirming palate cleanser. Right, which we need now after these stories. And these are nowhere near the bad, the worst research that I've done either. Oh, I'm sure.

Yeah. So, all right. Where can they find us? We can be found on our website at wauwobobo-woba.com. We can also be found on the Apple Podcast app, the Amazon podcast app, and on Spotify. Wherever you have found us, please take the time to subscribe and give us. us the five-star review that you know we deserve. And where can you be found, sir?

First Friday of every month, come on down to Sacramento Comedy Spot in Sacramento, 9 p.m., $15 tickets for capital punishment. Come on down. It will affirm your life. It'll be a good show. Check out me, Justine, Emily, and all four of the new guests. We're doing new stuff. So come on, check it out.

Go to sackcomedy spot.com. Get your tickets in advance. Get them online. That way you don't have to worry about being in line. But yeah, come check us out. Nice. Yeah. Well, for a geek history of time, I'm Damien Harmony.

And I'm Ed Blaylock. And keep rolling twin.